


just remember till you're home again, you belong to me

by mollivanders



Category: Lost
Genre: Coda, F/M, On the Run, Post-Series, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-27
Updated: 2010-05-27
Packaged: 2017-10-30 11:12:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/331136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollivanders/pseuds/mollivanders
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They land in a cloud of dust, somewhere in the desert. It’s a welcome change.</p><p>Kate disappears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	just remember till you're home again, you belong to me

**Author's Note:**

> **Title: just remember till you're home again, you belong to me**  
>  Rating: G  
> Characters: Sawyer/Kate  
> Spoilers/Warnings: Season 6 finale, "The End"  
> Disclaimer: LOST belongs to _ABC_ , I own nothing.

They land in a cloud of dust, somewhere in the desert. It’s a welcome change.

Kate disappears.

Sawyer almost expected it of her, the way she looked at no one and said even less, just stared out the window as the island disappeared beneath them and swallowed their lives.

He almost goes after her, decides to stay. 

These are his people now, he has to take care of them (Miles, Frank, Claire, Richard, the only familiar life left to him now). So escorts Claire back to L.A. and gets fake passports for everyone except Miles, who won’t take his.

With a new identity, he cons his way onto the police force and gets a badge that makes Miles bursts out laughing when he sees it.

“Better than being a ghost whisperer like you,” Sawyer retorts and Miles rolls his eyes.

“I gave that up,” the other man says and glances over to the bar’s open door. “You need a partner?”

Sawyer settles back into his life as James LaFleur, and it’s harder this time when it’s only Miles who has his back. He goes on a date or two when Miles says he can’t live alone forever, but nothing lasts. Sawyer’s used to lying about his life but still can’t answer the questions about his childhood or why he’s a cop.

Hell if he even knows.

A year after he makes detective, he gets a postcard in the mail.

It’s bent and weathered, the writing small and curly like her. The scene’s anonymous, some beach somewhere, but he’s willing to bet his salary she’s already in another town that looks exactly like the one she just left.

 _It’s cold here,_ the postcard reads. _The drinks are the best thing, the sand gets everywhere, and the bartender tells too many secrets. Good thing I don’t have any of those._

He wonders why she wrote (why she wrote to him).

They start coming at random, stories from no one. Postcards, letters, a FedEx package full of sand and seashells. The note that comes with it only says _Why didn’t ours have any seashells?_

Sawyer tries to remember seashells, and can’t. Fragments of broken rock, pink and tan in the sand, jelly fish and brush that stretched out into the water, but no seashells.

He stores the letters and trinkets in a shoebox in his closet, old habits dying hard, and tells himself he’ll make a fortune off a fugitive’s rewritten history, a story of world travels and no regrets.

One day in September, the eighteenth letter comes, an envelope shoved under his door with no postage. 

For the first time since they left, his blood picks up speed and time seems to hang, waiting for him to open it. She was here (he can still smell the ocean and salt she left behind).

The hotel the key goes to is in Newport, a coastal town with too many tourists. She’s not in her room (never where he expects).

“So you’re a cop now?” she asks from beneath her floppy hat and sunglasses, and he wouldn’t know it’s her but for the curls tied in a knot at her neck. “You like playing sheriff too much.”

He drops into the beach chair next to her, shrugs. “I should arrest you, Freckles,” he starts and leans closer.

“I’m not yours to arrest, James,” she reminds him with a confident stare. She’s more freckled now than ever but her eyes are still a shadowy green and he has to pull back.

“I missed you,” he says (finally, finally, she smiles, stretches out her hand for him).

“Me too,” she whispers, lets him loop his fingers through hers and they shift back, watching the water beyond the cliffs, hands suspended between them.

He knows she’s always a long con, knows she’s still on that island somewhere, and doesn’t care. 

She came back around (so will he).

_Finis_


End file.
